


Lies

by shayera



Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Study, Ficlet, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-30
Updated: 2009-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-03 16:04:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shayera/pseuds/shayera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Usopp talks to himself. Takes place at the end of the Thriller Bark arc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lies

It wasn't until everything was over except the victory celebrations that Usopp had time to think about what had happened when he fought Perona. But he felt uneasy about it, and on the next evening after the battles, he uncharacteristically decided to retire early and went looking for a secluded room in the ruined mansion to be alone with his thoughts.

Finding a good spot, he opened his bag and picked out the garish mask that he had donned back there in the spur of the moment. Sogeking. The superhero who was Usopp himself, but somehow also much... better. Braver, calmer, more clever.

It wasn't even a very good-looking mask, now that he looked at it more closely. But it fitted Usopp’s face, and he hadn't had time to be picky back on the Puffing Tom. The battering and blood-stains did make it look heroic, though. It seemed almost alive, looking at him knowingly.

"You know, Sogeking," Usopp told it with a sigh, "It's so typically me. I can't even hold my own in a fight that I picked myself without calling for help. It's ridiculous."

_You did not call for help. Indeed, there was no one to call._ It wasn’t the mask answering him, but it might as well have been.

"I know! That's the thing. The pressure was too damned much, and I was the only one who stood a chance, and I couldn't even think straight because I was so scared."

_And yet you pulled through._

"No I didn't. YOU did."

_I AM you._

Usopp leaned back against the wall and laughed painfully. "I know. I thought so, back at Enies Lobby, that maybe I was the one who had all that courage, standing up to the World Government and saving Robin and all. I mean, the mask was just so that I wouldn't have to face the others directly, right? But then why the hell did I need you to save me last night?" He pulled up the mask before him and stared at it; he didn't even feel silly doing so. "Answer me that!"

_Take it easy, Usopp-kun. You know the truth._

"Truth? What truth? I'm a professional liar."

_Exactly. It is easy to lie. But tell a lie convincingly enough, and you will start believing in it yourself._

"Isn't that kinda the point of a lie? To make reality better than it was?"

_Did your father ever come back for you?_

Usopp let the mask fall down on his lap. "...no," he said. "It just made me feel better to believe that he would. But that's in the past, so what does it got to do with anything right now?"

_Sogeking is another lie that you tell yourself to feel better._

A strong breeze from the broken ceiling above ruffled Usopp's tattered cape and made him shiver. At least he thought it was the cold wind's doing. "If I weren't such a coward..." he said quietly, looking at the mask again." Then maybe I could truly believe that the courage could come from inside myself. But I'm not that strong."

_Yet._

At that moment, his train of thought was interrupted by the sound of someone scrambling around on the broken roof, followed by a voice.

"Oy, Usopp!" Luffy exclaimed and poked his head down, letting it bounce upside-down on his rubbery neck from the hole in the ceiling. "What are you doing down there? I found this really cool room full of statues, wanna see?"

"Um," Usopp started, fumbling the mask away behind his back before Luffy could see it, though the captain didn't seem to pay any attention. "Statues? Cool, where?"

"I'll show you! Come on, grab my head and I'll pull you up!"

For a blink of an eye, Usopp considered leaving the mask – and the lie that he knew it represented – behind. Maybe he should have left it behind already on Water Seven. But somehow, it ended up back in his purse again – for the next time he needed a boost of courage.

_You are an idiot, Usopp-kun_, he thought to himself as he went to go with Luffy to look at statues.


End file.
